Oberlin College Rips Up Bill Cosby’s Honorary Degree

[oberliner]

Oberlin College is rescinding the honorary degree it gave to Bill Cosby in 2010, the school announced Friday.

“Mr. Cosby’s admitted actions are not congruent with Oberlin College’s commitment to supporting survivors of sexualized violence, as reflected in its sexual misconduct policy, and do not epitomize the high standards Oberlin considers in awarding honorary degrees,” college President Marvin Krislov said in a press release, apparently referring to a 2005 deposition unsealed earlier this year in which Cosby admitted to giving women Quaaludes. For that reason, Krislov said, the school’s board voted on December 4 to take back a doctorate of humanities Cosby received five years ago.

The decision is something of a reversal for the small Midwestern school famous for academic rigor and leftist politics.

The trustees of the Ohio liberal arts college had rejected a call to revoke Cosby’s degree just two months earlier. Non-faculty staffers at the school had written to the board requesting the action, but were denied. “While the Board ultimately declined to take action at this time, it will continue to monitor the situation closely,” board chair Clyde McGregor wrote of the board’s October meeting.

http://thinkprogress.org/culture/2015/12/18/3733850/oberlin-rescind-cosby-degree/

Took them long enough.

[liberalhistorian]

1. Good for them! I grew up near the college and

it's good to see them living up to their mission and creed.

I read an interesting article last month about the generational divide in the view of Cosby. The older generation knows him for his now-classic comedy, movies and tv shows and has a far more reverential attitude toward him which makes them more resistant to believing anything bad about him. The younger generation, however, only knows him for being a "moral scold" the "pull up your pants" nagging and the like, and have little reverential or positive feelings.

I remember about twenty-five years ago when he came to my town; he scolded a single mother whose children were "only" making B and C averages but who were staying out of trouble and heavily involved in school. As one local radio person put it "Mrs. Smith has successful children, Mr. Cosby does not" (at that time, at least two of his kids were into different kinds of trouble, etc.). I remember thinking even then about what a sanctimonious hypocritical nag he was, even though I'm of the generation that is supposed to have "reverential" feelings about him.